The Fearless Blogger

   

photo credit: Ganesha

The other day I wrote about the overwhelming response David Armano received from his blog post seeking help for his friend. (For those who would like to see the responses, you can view the continued updates here).

 Today brings another example from David’s blog.  

In his post Priceline’s Rapid Response Prevents A Groundswell, David writes about

Cat Zwicker-Grant, who works in the Real Estate business [and] also writes a blog. On her blog, she recently wrote on behalf of her friend who could not get a refund from Priceline. The circumstances though were understandable. Cat’s friend had a baby who suffered from severe burns and could not travel. But Priceline wouldn’t budge. 

David goes on to describe the chain of events that followed, resulting in Priceline.com providing a refund. (The post has been updated to read: “UPDATE: PRICELINE CALLED WITHIN AN HOUR AND A HALF OF MY TWEET BLAST OF THIS POST AND REFUNDED THE MONEY!”)  He concedes, however, that social media may not be deserving of all the credit – there had been several phone calls placed to Priceline as well.  

Nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder if Priceline’s decision was influenced by actions such as an email sent to Priceline’s SVP customer service which included a link to the Twitter search results for ‘priceline’.  As someone else noted, Priceline’s swift response has resulted in that same search now returning many positive comments regarding the company, somewhat mitigating the negative remarks.

To me, this incident illustrates the following:

1. The internet’s ability to amplify one person’s message into a voice too loud to be ignored.  Cat’s friend is not a well-known blogger; nor is Cat someone with a large Twitter following (she has 151 “followers”).  As David points out, Cat’s message’s success resulted from her “reaching out to people with significant influence and even MORE importantly, people who would take ACTION”.
2. This ability to amplify can be extremely empowering. Mind you, I don’t endorse the use of the internet as an online b*tch session on steroids.  That said, I whole-heartedly embrace using sites such as Get Satisfaction or leveraging one’s blog as conduits to communicate the message to the person best able to respond.
3. As a business, you may not buy into “this whole social media thing”.  You may choose not to invest time or money participating in the various sites that are out there.  Be aware that in doing so, you choose not only to miss out on an opportunity to connect with your customers, but also the ability to effectively listen to them.

• What is your initial reaction to the Priceline story?
• Have you had any experiences where the power of the internet helped resolve a customer service situation?

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